EL PASO, Texas – UTEP got off to a quick start with four touchdowns in the first 20 minutes en route to a 42-10 win over HBU, which played its second FBS opponent of the season, Saturday night at Sun Bowl Stadium.
Senior quarterback
Tony Dawson went 4-for-16 for 33 yards and rushed for 59 yards on seven carries, while junior quarterback
Max Staver completed 4-of-11 passes for 57 yards and a touchdown for HBU (3-6). Junior running back
B.J. Kelly carried 10 times for 40 yards and junior running back
Terrance Peters rushed 12 times for 32 yards and was the Huskies' leading receiver with three catches for 50 yards and a score.
Junior linebacker
Garrett Dolan made 17 tackles, while junior linebacker
Cody Moncure and freshman safety
Nicholas Smith each made seven. Senior defensive end
Terrance Manderville recorded a pair of sacks to set a new HBU single-game record. Junior punter
Christian Guzman had an outstanding night with nine punts for a 44.9-yard average, including four inside the 20, while sophomore kicker
Alec Chadwick was 1-for-1 on field goal attempts – a school-record 52-yarder.
Aaron Jones carried 14 times for 228 yards and two touchdowns for UTEP (3-6), while Kevin Dove had 10 carries for 59 yards. Quarterback Ryan Metz completed 16-of-21 passes for 191 yards and three touchdowns. Hayden Plinked caught seven passes for 77 yards and a pair of touchdowns, while Eddie Sinegal made four catches for 53 yards.
Dante Lovilette led the Miners with eight tackles, while Dashone Smith and Nick Usher each made six. Alan Luna punted four times for a 28.5-yard average.
The Miners piled up 514 yards of offense, while holding the Huskies to 227. UTEP rushed for 323 yards and HBU ran for 137. The game was relatively clean as HBU committed two penalties for 28 yards and UTEP committed one for five yards.
"I was disappointed, I didn't think we played very physical," HBU head coach
Vic Shealy said. "Obviously, they've got a great running game, very physical, probably the most physical team we've faced all season in terms of coming off the ball, which gave us some difficulty there. I don't think we showed the type of toughness it takes in order to compete defensively against a team like this, but our kids didn't quit, it's just a different style of offense than what we see in our league and we didn't adjust really well tonight. Offensively, it's tough to move the ball when you don't consistently win at the line of scrimmage, I didn't think we ran great, crisp routes and I don't know mentally, every decision-making execution was where it should be. Not to be leave a completely negative feeling, but it's hard to feel like we played as well as we thought we can, but I know this is a football team that's played a lot of close ball games and they're not that far away from being a good Conference USA team. We've got to do a good job to right it back from this."
UTEP received the opening kickoff and scored 1:15 in on a 39-yard run by Jones. Later in the quarter, Metz found Plinke for a 23-yard completion, then capped the drive by finding Plinke again wide open after a play fake for a nine-yard touchdown. Early in the second quarter, Metz threw an 18-yard touchdown to Cole Freytag and Jones scored on a 62-yard touchdown run to make the score, 28-0, with 13:36 to go.
Dawson's 23-yard scamper on third-and-three set up Chadwick's school-record 52-yard field goal with 8:36 remaining.
The Miners scored to open the third quarter on Dove's seven-yard run with 9:02 left on the clock.
Guzman had a punt downed at the 1-yard line, then the Huskies forced a three-and-out. After a 22-yard punt by Luna, HBU took over at the 29 and Staver hit Peters on the first play of the drive for a 29-yard touchdown pass to make the score, 35-10 with 1:29 left in the third.
UTEP capped the scoring with Plinke's second touchdown of the game, an 11-yarder from Metz with 10:22 remaining.
The Huskies return to Southland Conference action for their final home game against Stephen F. Austin on Senior Day Saturday at 2 p.m., followed by the season finale at Incarnate Word Thursday, Nov. 17 at 7 p.m. in San Antonio.
